It commonly occurs that an HL7 compatible interface needs to be established to be suitable for conveying HL7 transaction messages between different computer systems such as between an ADT (Admission, Discharge and Transfer) system and an ambulatory EMR (Electronic Medical Record) system, for example. Such a created interface needs to be capable of transferring different types of HL7 compatible messages between the different systems without error. Known systems validate an HL7 transaction message for accuracy by typically requiring a user to load a transaction message into a text editor and manually count through message data element delimiters and validate that the data and its placement in each element is correct and conforms to the HL7 standard. This type of burdensome, time consuming validation may occur during the development of an HL7 interface, at the sender, receiver, or in the integration engine or during system operation to verify correct operation perhaps in response to error. Further this burden increases with the complexity and length of transaction message.
There is a need to emulate how data is to be transmitted or received in a real world situation in testing of interfacing logic within an application. For example, test processing of ADT (Admission, Discharge, Transfer) message communication to an ambulatory EMR (Electronic Medical Record) system may involve sending and resending a transaction message multiple times and this may be repeated for different types of messages associated with different scenarios. In known systems such test processing requires substantial user setup time, burdensome manual generation of multiple transaction messages for communication by a sending system as well as initiation of transmission of the generated messages. Known systems are thereby prone to error and reliant on other systems for test data support and the other systems resources may not be available. A system according to invention principles addresses these deficiencies and related problems.